March 2020 • Issue 4 • grit
SUCCESS CHAMPIONS Grit Really means get shit done! top 30 reasons salespeople fail The nitty gritty of a great call to action The five essential elements of an email marketing campaign “I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire adult life and I now put more significance in the journey versus the end results. The journey is everything.” - Mike Michalowicz
Success Champions
Contents
60 The five essential elements of an email marketing campaign
6 Grit Really means get shit done!
Kevin Snow explains how email still boasts the highest ROI for any marketing channel, and is the best way to build an ‘owned’ audience that you can continue to market to in the future.
Donnie Boivin explains how grit is about doing the stuff that others won’t even when you don’t feel like doing it.
10 top 30 reasons salespeople fail
12 you are the worst coach on the planet 20 are you using your intuition in your business success 28 six things i learned from my father about ‘biz 32 why your website probably stinks (and how to fix it fast) 36 stress, health and entrepreneurship 44 5 things you can do to audit your own brand 48 asset protection strategies as you grow your business 52 The nitty gritty of a great call to action 56 Joint Ventures and strategic alliances 64 author or speaker? how and when do you hire a VA 66 a pinterest profile that works for you 70 networking: Its more than just giving away business cards 74 how to self-publish like a boss 76 grit is personal!
There are probably 130 or more reasons why salespeople fail, and Nancy Friedman shares her top 30. These are the ‘most common’ and you should recognize them easily.
14 Mike Michalowicz: His Mission to Eradicate Entrepreneurial Poverty
Feature article with Mike Michalowicz: Michalowicz discusses entrepreneurial poverty and his devotion to closing that gap and helping entrepreneurs achieve their definition of greatness.
24 write like a badass and grow your business with words Laura DiFranco shares a few simple writing tips and you won’t just love writing for your business, you’ll get so excited you might just have to make it a habit.
40 what is your energetic tie to money?
Jacqueline Kane takes on the journey of learning how you feel about money, why you feel that way and what you can do now to shift into a new friendship with money.
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Success Champions
are you ready for change?
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pring is always a time of change and this year it looks like we are in for a wild ride. Are you ready for the changes that are coming? Ever since my Dad gave me my first self help book I have been hooked on improving myself. I may not have been the best student in school, ok that’s a stretch. I wasn’t by any definition a good student, but as I started growing Success Champions, I discovered that there was a lot of shit I didn’t know. I started consuming every business book I could find to learn how to do things better. And now I have a team that constantly teaches me something new. Continuous learning became a way of life for me and I’ve found
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that everyone has something that they can learn, and more importantly, everyone has something that they can teach. And that is what this issue is all about…learning a new way to do things and teaching others. I’ve asked all the authors this month to teach something. It could be how to set up an effective email campaign or how to maximize the results you get from a virtual assistant, but every article this month is going to show you how to do something that can add immediate value to your business and you as a business owner. And who better to interview this month than Mike Michalowitz who built a career teaching entrepreneurs how to launch and grow their businesses. Are your ready to start on your journey of learning? If so turn the page and let’s go Founding Badass, Donnie
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Success Champions By Donnie Boivin
Grit Really Means Get Shit Done
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love the phrase get shit done. On my team I only hire Get Shit Done people. It really is a quality I look for in others. But what does it really mean to Get Shit Done and how does one go about it? Well, in simple terms you do whatever it takes to make it happen. I learned a lot about this in the Marine Corps. Oftentimes we were ordered to do some crazy ass task with little or no direction, and almost always lacking the tools to make it happen. So, you had to improvise which really means you’re just making shit up as you go along. Not completing the task was never even a possibility You just said “yes sir or ma’am” put your head down and got to work. And you got really fucking creative along the way. It’s that creativity I want to focus on: that mindset of making it happen no matter what. I think people think they have grit, and this really get-shit-done mentality, but they really don’t have it. I think it’s a learned skill but to a lot of people life happens and they forget they had that extra gear they could shift into. I want to help people find that extra gear, but more importantly, I want
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GRIT them to level the fuck up so they can get shit done. Tips to be a Get Shit Done Person 1. Fail Better – I know all the talk about failing and learning from your failures. Hell, I’ve said and coached people to be ok with failure. But what I want people to really do is fail better. Which means not only must you fail but you must learn from it and then fail again, and again and again. Each time improving upon the last time by applying what you’re learning. Yes, I am serious I want you to fuck up, laugh, and then do it again - only better. 2. Get Creative – Stop doing what others are doing and do something different. So many gurus out there offering their advice on how to run your business. Stop listening and start doing. Do something for the first time and learn to do it without the gurus, just YouTube and google if you need to - and go. If it flops who cares. Most of my best stuff has come from things I tried and flopped on but taught myself how to do something I now use in the business. 3. Question Yourself – Ask yourself if the activity that you’re doing right now is what you need to be doing, or are you avoiding something else. This has been a solid “fuck you” punch for me a time or ten. Stop doing busy work and do the stuff that will grow your business. A sure sign that you’re not getting shit done is when you’re doing shit to avoid the shit you need to be doing. 4. Do the Money-Making Shit
First – This one is golden, not that the others are not badass, but this one is a gem. If every day you did the stuff that made you money, (outreaches, connecting networking etc.) first your business would grow incredibly fast and you would stop worrying about paying your damn bills. 5. Outsource – Holy crap get that shit off your plate. YOU are not scalable. Quit trying to do it all yourself. Build a team of people who geek out on what you suck at and figure out a way to work together. 6. Say No – You will get more respect for saying no than you will saying yes. Don’t believe me go back to your dating days and say yes to everyone who asked. Stop being a “yes” person in your business; grow a spine and tell people NO. That includes vendors you haven’t followed up with to tell them you’re not going to do business with them. 7. Celebrate the Small Wins – You got to stack the wins. It’s the small wins that lead to big wins. Don’t discount that stuff. Find places where people will celebrate with you. Shameless Plug - Every Wednesday in the Success Champions Facebook Group you can post your wins. 8. Keep Your Energy High – You’re going to get bumps and bruises on this business journey. You are going to have bad days; we all do. It’s ok to get pissed off. Rage if you got to. Just get back to work when you’re done. Don’t dwell on it. Feel it, embrace it, and move on.
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“When a fear pops up, I believe it’s the universe saying that’s exactly the direction you need to go.”
Success Champions 9. Make a Get Shit Done List – Seriously write down everything you need to get done for the day and do that. It’s amazing how productive you are when you know what to do.
“Bottom Line: Getting Shit Done is about doing the stuff that others won’t, even when you don’t feel like doing it.”
10. Do the Thing You Fear – Ya, this is a biggie for me. When a fear pops up, I believe it’s the universe saying that’s exactly the direction you need to go. Go do that. It’s not about beating or overcoming the fear, it’s about who you become along the way and what you learn. 11. Work Harder When You’re at Your Best – I’m a morning guy and a lot about focusing on the right shit early in the day sets me up for a ton of later success. Know when you’re at your best and do the hard stuff then. 12. Take A Damn Walk – On days when shit is really stacking against me a simple walk on the backside of the farm clears my head. It’s an amazing tool to shut everything off and refocus. 13. Kick On Badass Music – Man this has been a cool hack for me. If I am in a creative space or need to produce a lot of content. Turning on the right music is immediate energy boost. My favorite adventure movie scores work for me. You know, that music that has the build then an awesome climax? Ya - that shit really gets me flowing.
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14. Stop Multi-Tasking – OK before you say I got this and now this. I think you should multitask running a business to get everything done. But occasionally, stop all the shit and get one thing done now. For instance, while I write this, I have 18 Facebook chats going, 3 LinkedIn Chats, and I am responding to a Facebook 30 days Sales Challenge we are running in the group. 15. Surround yourself With Other Get Shit Done People – Most people hang out with people that want to celebrate when shit sucks, that whole misery loves company shit. Instead, get around people who will celebrate the successes with you; the people who get fired up when your business does well. 16. Do You – Stop worrying about what others think. Trust me the ones who make it big in this world thrive on haters. They know that when the haters come, your winning. It means your message finally got past your friends and family and you’re about to explode. Bottom Line: Getting Shit Done is about doing the stuff that others won’t, even when you don’t feel like doing it. It’s about going bigger and inspiring others because of your actions not just your words. Be the flame for someone else’s torch and carve the path for them to follow. You are not meant to play small, Badass. So, Go Get Shit Done… Donnie
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Success Champions
The Top -30Reasons Salespeople Fail By Nancy Friedman, Founder, Chairman, Telephone Doctor Customer Service Training
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here are probably 130 or more reasons why salespeople fail, we’ve come up with the ‘most common’ and you should recognize them easy. No one aspires to ‘fail’ it’s usually done unknowingly. Unless you can look in the mirror and say – “This is the problem” we’ll never know. The best part of this list. Every one of these reasons…can be fixed. Every one of them.
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• • • • • • • • • • • •
They don’t hone their skills They’re not flexible They’re not team players They don’t use their sense of humor They don’t use their imagination They don’t listen to management They make no effort after hours They get too comfortable – too fast They interrupt. They don’t ask or maybe don’t understand OPEN ENDED questions They make too many assumptions Their mind is not on the sale
GRIT • They’re not able to handle corrective criticism • They don’t have enthusiasm for life • They have poor time management skills • They don’t use their personality on the job; saving that trait for the weekend. • They don’t have a “whatever it takes” attitude • They lose their focus • They’re not able to deal with personality conflicts • They don’t believe 100% in the product they’re selling • They don’t understand rapport building • They think they know it all. A finished product. • They don’t qualify the leads
well. • They lack confidence. Which REASON will you fix first? Nancy Friedman Customer service keynote speaker, founder and chairman of Telephone Doctor Customer Service Training is a featured speaker at franchise, association, and corporate meetings. A popular TV guest, she appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, CNN, FOX News, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, as well as hundreds of other radio, television and print outlets around the world, including the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. The author of 9 books on her chosen topics, Nancy helps corporate America improve their communications with their customers & co-workers. www.nancyfriedman.com; nancyf@telephonedoctor.com; 314 -291 1012
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“No one aspires to ‘fail’ it’s usually done unknowingly. Unless you can look in the mirror and say – ‘This is the problem’ we’ll never know.”
Success Champions
“You are the worst coach on the planet!” By Dana Pharant
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n my 26 years of working with clients I have only had 3 people who have said this or something similar, and they ALL share two key things.
“They all talked a good game, but in reality, when we touched the pain point of taking ALL the ownership for the crap showing up in their life .... I get yelled at and told that it is ALL MY fault that they are failing.”
First is that I compromised in some way shape or form on the payment thing. I allowed them to pay nothing up front, or let the payments slide, or gave them a discount: most often in the name of wanting more clients. I love helping people, but I forgot that when people don’t pay for something, they also don’t value it. Then I would go over in our session times because they were suffering, and this would happen repeatedly. This over giving, and not making them pay what was required when it was required created an imbalance and a debt that they felt energetically, and caused them to go into resistance to the coaching. However, that was only a smaller part of the problem. The second, and bigger problem
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was that I missed that they were not actually willing to lean way the fuck in when I called them on the victim ass bullshit that was running the show. They all talked a good game, but in reality, when we touched the pain point of taking ALL the ownership for the crap showing up in their life .... I get yelled at and told that it is ALL MY fault that they are failing. If you have run into these sorts of clients here are some things that I have found to be super helpful. 1. Bust out of the scarcity mindset and be willing to say NO to any client who is not a “Hell Yes” ideal client. Feeling like I “needed the money” has gotten me into way more sticky jams - over and over again. It makes me ignore my intuition and then shit goes sideways. 2. Have a contract that the new client signs giving me permission to call them on their shit. And pulling from my days as a Dominatrix, I add in a “safe-word” that indicates it is time to call bullshit, what it is, and at this point they have the option to lean in or jump ship. This allows them to take full ownership on being called out and lean into the discomfort so that we can shift it out and then get back to being a badass in business. 3. Learning to recognize and honor when a client is not a great fit; seeing who talks a great game but will not fully lean in. I choose to say No to these people even when they really want to work with me. I know that it
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will not be worth the added pain-inthe-ass factor even if they paid me double.
how she was triggered by my success when she felt stuck in the swamp with what appeared to be no way out.
4. Have a great coach in your corner to keep you honest. One that will call you out and invite you to look beyond your reaction to things and find the deeper trigger that is ready to move out as a result of what has happened. This keeps me from repeating the same pattern over and over, be it taking on the wrong clients or any other interesting mess I find myself in with business.
Being in business can often feel like an extreme personal development sport. We come out muddy and bruised, and yet, not long after we finish one competition we are hungry to get back in there and do it again.
This is not about shaming and blaming the clients. The fact is that some clients are just not ready, and that is not about us. No matter how amazing our coaching is, they are not ready. Perhaps they need to hit a new rock bottom, or maybe they need to heal something else first. We can’t always know what it is for them, but we can say NO to those who we see are not ready. In fact, one of those 3 people came back 6 months later and apologized to me for her lashing out and owned
And as for me...well #1 on the planet in any category is still fucking awesome. LOL Becoming a badass in life and business requires you to stand in your power and be super comfy with being unique! Dana Pharant knows ALL about standing out and being unique. Her personal brand of the Inner Dominatrix™ pushes people out of their comfort zone, challenges their preconceived notions and has them stepping into a fierce determination to rock their Bold, Sexy Fun-Filled Lives! She has worked with clients to transform their lives for 25+ years, been a CEO of a Million dollar company, 2x award-winning speaker, best selling author of 5 books, has earned the title of Master Healer and yes she really was a Dominatrix.
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“This is not about shaming and blaming the clients. The fact is that some clients are just not ready, and that is not about us”
Success Champions
Featured Article
Mike Michalowicz: His Mission to Eradicate Entrepreneurial Poverty
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verybody starts their business at a stage I call entrepreneurial poverty. You start it up and the world thinks you’re wildly successful, sitting on the beach drinking beers. The perception is of immediate success with little effort but the reality is that it’s an
extraordinary amount of effort, rarely successful, and fraught with financial struggles or even depression. The gap between where the world thinks you are and where you really are is what I call entrepreneurial poverty and I’ve devoted my life
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to closing that gap and helping entrepreneurs achieve their definition of greatness. I truly believe the world is starving for entrepreneurial success. Entrepreneurs drive the economy. We are providers for our colleagues and our families. We do so much.
GRIT And I’m devoted to this because it’s my journey too. I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire adult life and I now put more significance in the journey versus the end results. The journey is everything. I think the most important part of my journey so far was my third business, an angel investing company. I sucked at it. It was a calamity. I called myself the angel of death. I actually started ten businesses and they all failed in short order. I was paying bills for businesses that didn’t even exist anymore and wiped out my savings. My ego was in the way and I thought I knew everything.
ownership, profit, work efficiency, managing employees, and making sales. Every book I’ve ever written was based on a challenge I had and
back on that time at my office on the Avenue of the Americas, sitting facing the Rockefeller Christmas tree with my six-figure salary. I hated it. My father said, “Mike finally you have a job. Just do your work.” But I couldn’t. There was a point when one of the employees came to me to say, “Hey, we’re out of toilet paper.” Well I called corporate because I didn’t know how we were supposed to pay for toilet paper and the response was, “Who are you?”
“I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire adult life and I now put more significance in the journey versus the end results. The journey is everything.”
I remember facing my family at dinner one night and having to tell them we were about to lose our house. I had to look at my nine-yearold daughter and say, “I can’t afford your horseback riding lessons. I can’t afford anything.” I remember her running to her room, grabbing her piggy bank and then running back to say, “Daddy since you can’t provide, I will do it for us.” That hurt. It was a wake up call. It was a punch to the gut. But I didn’t wake up right away. I started drinking and was severely depressed. I became an insomniac and was angry at myself and the world. But that all did become the impetus for change. Over a year or two I began to challenge all my thoughts about business ownership. I devoted myself to learning everything about business
needed a resolution for. I devoted five or six years of research to each book. I’m constantly researching and learning what I need to. And I still operate businesses as an equity owner. I have a president who runs the business and I function as a shareholder and participate at a very high level by giving them strategic direction and planning. I think this is what an entrepreneur should really do. These businesses became a testing ground for me and I’m now devoting my life to being an author and providing the knowledge that simplifies the entrepreneurial journey. Back when I sold my second company, a Fortune 500, part of the acquisition deal was that I stay on and work for the company for a certain period of time. But you know, once you become an entrepreneur you can’t go back to being an employee. You really render yourself unemployable. I had to follow all these clauses in my contract. I look
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This was all very hard on my family too. I think as entrepreneurs it’s like asking our spouse to take a ride in a race car with you. You’re the entrepreneur and they are not. They don’t know what they are signing up for. So you get into the driver’s seat of the car as the entrepreneur and you say to your loved one, “Honey, here’s the deal, we’re getting in and I’m going to drive, but there’s no steering wheel, only a gas pedal. And I’m going to floor this puppy. Oh and by the way, there’s no seatbelt.” So here you are, the spouse of your beloved entrepreneur and you’re sitting in the car without a seatbelt knowing they only have the gas pedal and no control. I think we bring terror upon our poor spouses. The only thing they can do is bark out orders like, “Slow down!” Or, “Hit the brakes!” Thank goodness for them. Every entrepreneur is on a similar journey. In some of my videos you
Success Champions from nature and translating it into a human application; in this case business growth. I described colossal business growth, something I was experiencing by calling businesses that just hit it in their niche and were recognized brands. I then wrote a book called Surge, also about business growth. Then came Profit First, Clockwork, and then Fix This Next. Most all of this was my journey, but then what became important was what the reader was going through. I started responding to emails from readers who were saying things like, “Help me, I’m growing a business and not making any money.”
can see I have a bracelet with an infinity symbol. This is constant reminder to me because there was a time when I thought I was better than other people. I thought I was higher up than them. But we’re all on this same path, no matter who we are. When I had my darkest days, lost everything, and hit rock bottom the value in that journey, in retrospect, was tremendous. The most valuable day on that journey was probably in the darkest period of my life. So when I look at others and think, they’re higher up, they’re doing better, it’s really not true. There may or may not be learning happening in those moments. The infinity symbol helps me remember there’s not a single person in a better position or not.
We’re all in this together. This is true for the destitute homeless person with drug addictions as well as the person who is living in the lap of luxury. Each is part of a journey and there’s always something to learn. When I started writing books about my journey it was partly that; my personal experience, and it was partly about the reader’s journey. When I wrote Toilet Paper Entrepreneur I was re-starting my own business and wanted to write a business that could start itself. It was the definition of bootstrapping; no money, no resources, no contacts, etc…It was about the lack of resources being your advantage. That led to an experience after which I wrote The Pumpkin Plan, where I was taking something
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When I hear from others who are getting results based on what I’ve written it’s euphoric. There’s a book called The Five Love Languages written by Gary Chapman and it’s a foundational book for relationships, probably one of the most impactful books of all time, like up there with the Bible. I’ve used the information not just for my marriage, but for business. We have 12 colleagues here and we run our business according to each person’s love language. We call it their appreciation language. My own language is “words of affirmation,” which means when I hear someone give me specific appreciation using words, it lights me up. Other people respond more to physical touch; a pat on the hand or a handshake. Others are about quality time. So I set up a feedback loop that speaks to the employee’s appreciation language, and then I did it for my readers too.
GRIT I think every business needs to do this because it facilitates drive and momentum. With every book I write I ask the reader what they think and to email me and tell me how the information is serving them. I was legitimately reading every email. I now have a little help with that because I receive so many emails. Receiving words like this fuels me to come at this harder every single day. I planned to be an author from the get-go. And you never know what will happen on the journey. But I do have a vision for the outcome of my business and it’s not quite where I would expect it to be yet. But I have a clear vision for what I need to do. This used to be rooted in comparison, but now it’s rooted in impact. Sometimes I worry I don’t have enough breaths left on the planet to do what I want to do. So gaining massive exposure for these books and the work I do is necessary to have the impact I need to have. And I’ll tell you this, the journey was way fucking harder than I thought.
happened down the street.” I was crying inside but there was this little voice that said, deliver the speech. And I did. I was
are small businesses. That’s 180 million of us carrying the load for the seven billion people in the world. 83% of these businesses are under a cash flow crunch, with overwhelming stress and can’t be adequate providers for themselves or their communities. That’s a real problem.
“It took me years of thought and questioning myself but my purpose pushes me every day, more than others I watch. Being relentless about your purpose is powerful.”
I remember getting my first speaking gig at a university. I flew out to California on my own dime from New York. I was told there would be about 200 people. I was so nervous but walked into the venue ready to talk about my first book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. There was one guy there; the event coordinator. He says to me, “I don’t know if anyone’s coming. There’s a frat party that’s
embarrassed, delivering the speech to a blackboard with one guy, the event coordinator, sitting there texting on his phone the whole time. But that was the moment I realized I was committed to the journey. I realized that maybe I hadn’t found my people yet, but I wasn’t going to quit. My mission now is to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. There are 180 million active small businesses today. In this case small business is defined by the SBA to be a company that does 25 million in annual revenue or less than 400 employees. The vast majority of businesses that exist
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For those entrepreneurs who have lost everything and are working to grow their business and succeed remember to get in touch with your purpose. What’s the greater reason and cause you’re serving? It took me years of thought and questioning myself but my purpose pushes me every day, more than others I watch. Being relentless about your purpose is powerful.
Success Champions The other important thing to remember is that a corporate goal harms the progress of your business. A corporate vision is a vision of the owners, not the employees. The mission of a business should be to satisfy all of the intentions of the people who support the business. My goal used to be for our business to make 10 million dollars. Now that’s simply one of the objectives I’ve set for myself. Now the mission is about each of my employees individually too. We have a wall here at the office where every employee writes out their intentions for themselves for the year. I think this is a big key that most businesses are missing out on. It’s how you get full engagement from your employees. My intention is to make 100% of
the 180 million businesses financially viable and eradicate entrepreneurial poverty for them. I know I can’t do this in my lifetime. And that’s why I need to establish the legacy I have to develop the tools that are accessible to large amounts of people, easily, and without the necessity for my active input. Books are my greatest vehicle for that. I’m devoted to 25 or 30 more books, until my final breath. Mike Michalowicz is the entrepreneur behind three multimillion-dollar companies and is the author of Profit First, Clockwork, The Pumpkin Plan, and his newest book, Fix This Next. Mike is a
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former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal and regularly travels the globe as as an entrepreneurial advocate. To learn more about Mike and get access to a treasure trove of entrepreneurial tips, visit www.MikeMichalowicz.com.
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Success Champions
Are You using Your Intuition In Your Business Success? By Carolyn McGee
“If we have a hard time making decisions or getting clarity about what our next right step is, it impacts every aspect of life including our business.”
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he way we make decisions is the same in every situation. How we show up in one case is how we will react or show up in every situation. If we have a hard time making decisions or getting clarity about what our next right step is, it impacts every aspect of life including our business. Your business is an extension of you. Your choices shape the direction and growth of your business. Not clearly seeing your business mission, niche and ideal client means you are wasting valuable marketing time, and your clients are not finding the valuable service that you provide. We are taught to be logical and analytical in all our choices. Many of us learned to rely on outside
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validation and family/society rules to guide our choices. This can lead to struggle with making decisions when we get conflicting advice, or it doesn’t feel right to us. There is so much fear around being wrong that we sometimes miss opportunities because we can’t decide. We invest in other people’s programs and processes instead of trusting ourselves and our own intuitive wisdom. When we are only using our logical skills to make business decisions it is harder to feel and trust our intuition. We lose a big tool for clarity and confidence in our choices. Intuition is an internal guidance system. It is like a GPS that you can follow to get information to help you make the best decisions. Your intuition is your body’s resonance with the energy that is out there to
GRIT help you with making choices that are beneficial. We all have a certain level of intuition. It is like a muscle. You just must practice using it. The more you practice, the more you exercise your intuition, the stronger it becomes. Intuition comes from the Latin word root meaning “in to you”. Intuition is your ability to literally reach into others, understand and evaluate. It is your ability to sense things in your environment in a way that is vastly deeper than using sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste alone. It is your ability to know in your heart what feels healthy and what does not. These senses are your mechanism for tuning into your intuition and identifying guidance. There are four main ways that your intuitive sense talks to you: Clairvoyance - visually with your eyes, dreams and your insight Clairaudience - audibly through things you hear from others, sounds around you or things you hear in your head Clairsentience - sensations and
feelings that you experience Claircognizance - with the inner knowing you hold in your heart and your gut. You are born with these senses and even if one type is stronger, you can practice and develop them all. I have an engineering management degree and worked in high tech for over 20 years. I used clairsentience in design meetings and negotiations. I could feel the energy in a room and felt if the people were being honest or if there was more room in an offer. I used my intuition as a factor in hiring people in corporate and in my own business and I was 100% accurate. When I was laid off in 2006, my intuition guided me to start my own successful business when all logic said that didn’t make sense. When I struggled with a decision, I would walk until I just knew the answer. I allowed my mind to relax so my intuition could surface. Following my intuition and opening a second business allowed me to fully step into a blend of logical and intuitive decision making. By expanding my intuitive gifts, using my logic to prove my intuition right, I expanded the data available to decide how to easily grow my businesses. I used intuition to define my ideal client
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“Intuition is your ability to literally reach into others, understand and evaluate. It is your ability to sense things in your environment in a way that is vastly deeper than using sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste alone.”
Success Champions
“I used intuition to define my ideal client and niche. I used logic to monitor return on investment.”
and niche. I used logic to monitor return on investment. I allowed intuition to create my social media presence and persona. Logic convinced me to outsource jobs that I technically could do but it was someone else’s expertise and therefore would be done more efficiently. Intuition told me when it was time to take a break even when logic said I was on a deadline….and I always returned to the task with a clearer perspective and more energy. Intuition is a gift and a highly underrated business tool. How can you allow your intuition to serve your business in a higher manner? Intuitive Coach & Teacher, former corporate high-tech star, serial entrepreneur, Carolyn McGee, specializes in Amplifying YOUR Intuitive Superpower to listen to, trust and follow your soul’s path to live the
most joyful, healthy, connected, abundant, and purposeful life. She has co-authored 8 bestselling books, is a popular TV co-host, sought-after speaker and blogger. She has taught thousands of professional, corporate and entrepreneurial people to trust themselves and their intuition so they can show up in full power in business and life.
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Success Champions
Write Like a Badass and Grow Your Business With Your Words By Laura DiFranco
T “I love figuring out new, creative, fun and powerful ways to express my message with words that turn people on to the point of clicking and buying.”
eaching you how to write like a badass is not only a passion, it’s kind of an obsession. I love figuring out new, creative, fun and powerful ways to express my message with words that turn people on to the point of clicking and buying. And it’s not as hard as you might think. Want to feel so good about your writing that you’re giving those copywriters a run for their money? I got you. Follow a few simple tips and you won’t just love writing for your business, you’ll get so excited you might just have to make it a habit. This is more about how you’re being in
the world vs. how good of a writer you are. Funny enough, when you’re being badass, your writing will show it too. It’s way more about just being yourself, than any particular technical writing tool you need to learn. Let’s have some fun writing like a badass!
5 Writing Tools to Take Your Words from Meh to Badass: Please feel something. You want to move me into action? You better feel something. In fact, that thing you feel better be exactly how you want me to feel when I click on your offer. Are you bored, tired, disinterested or just stressed about the deadline? Then stop writing. Pick it up another time when you can actually feel hopeful, inspired, excited, enthusiastic or downright blissed out - the way you want those prospective clients to feel when they work with you. Remember, you’re infusing your words with important energy. Don’t let that energy be sucky.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive; and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman
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Write like you talk. Want the best shortcut? Record your stuff and then have it transcribed. When you’re writing like you talk your reader will feel like you’re having a conversation with them. They will get to know, love and trust you. They will want to actually talk to you. At a minimum, read what you write out loud to yourself; best editing tool ever. The quickest tip to writing like you talk? Contractions. Change your “it is” to “it’s” and you’ll have a great start.
Be personal. In the world of know, love and trust, there’s really no TMI. In fact, the more personal, the more universal. In other words when you’re the real, raw, authentic, wild and crazy you, you have a better chance of earning someone’s trust and love. Tell us a story about you. Think that people don’t want to hear that stuff ? You’d
be wrong. They need to hear it to know that you’re the right person for them.
Show us, don’t tell us. Want the best writing tip ever on the face of the planet? Stop trying to tell us everything and show us instead. Give us an experience. Teach us something. Use things like sensory description, emotions and dialogue to bring us in as a fly on the wall in your world. When you show us and make us feel it, you’re writing is a huge step toward being badass.
Go ahead and be controversial. People think they have to write so everyone will like them. That’s bullshit. Try ruffling a few feathers. Be bold. Be controversial. Be polarizing. Stand for something for goodness sake. Believe me, your people will love you for it. They will be magnetized to you. More of your
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“In the world of know, love and trust, there’s really no TMI.”
Success Champions
“Be bold. Be controversial. Be polarizing. Stand for something for goodness sake. Believe me, your people will love you for it.”
ideal clients will show up. Will the trolls come out too? Yes. But when they show up, you know you’re doing something right with your writing. What drives you absolutely crazy in your current field of business? Write about it, and especially your take on that and why you feel that way. What makes you pissed off ? Write about it. What do you love so much you feel illegal amounts of joy? Write about it!
Franco, MPT, Owner of Brave Healer Productions helps business owners write expert content that converts. Your book, your blogs, your copy...let’s write words that change the world and build your business. www.BraveHealer.com
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive; and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman Now go figure out what makes you come alive and write about it! I can’t wait to read! Ready to write like a badass? Laura Di
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Success Champions
Six Things I learned from my Father about ‘biz By Donald R Dodson Jr
M Too often we are chasing perfectionism. We’re trying to build the Steinway piano when all we really need is the simple door.
y father is in his 80s. I try to spend one day a week, and I go hang out and work on the property or cut wood or something. (I often post about these “Adventures with Dad” on Social media. Like a typical octogenarian, he is just ripe with lots of quotes, quips and phrases that at the very least make you smile and perhaps give you something to consider when it comes to life and business. Here are a select few that I can think of this time.
“It’s not a Steinway.” My father and I are often working on projects around the house and on some of the outbuildings. We are making repairs
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on some pretty old and rustic outbuildings. It’s carpentry and masonry work, mostly And we would oftentimes come to when we could make something a lot nicer and better, but here is a simple reality and practical thing -- is it’s just a door to a woodshed, and it doesn’t need to be particularly fancy. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to work. Hence the term, “It’s not a Steinway (piano)”. This applies to businesses often. Too often we are chasing perfectionism. We’re trying to build the Steinway piano when all we really need is the simple door. Apply the amount of perfectionism that you need to but be practical with the effort that you put into a project. Oftentimes we get too hung
GRIT up on making it perfect and end up producing nothing in the process.
“Ummm, yeah it sounds worse than it is.” Probably one of the most interesting of my father’s little phrases is during a meal and something would be particularly good. My father would then announce, with an appropriate grin “This tastes gooder than shit.” Yup, that’s my dad. But all chuckling aside. The point is that we should have gratitude for the things that we do have and realize that, we could be doing a lot worse. By focusing on the good things around us, then we’ll always feel better about our circumstance. And as many of you know, gratitude is critical to having a proper mindset.
“Always be learning.” I could stay up an hour later at bedtime when I was young, as long as I was reading. My father always has a book in his hand. He’s always reading about something. And my father didn’t have a particularly, academic background in his life, but he was constantly pushing me to learn more. And this is, of course, common amongst the big entrepreneurs, the value of learning constantly.
“If the Colonial craftsman could do it…” This is about tools, technology and getting things done, often creatively. My father collects antique and
primitive tools. So, we always were working and making something. He would oftentimes use those tools instead of modern power tools. And there’s a lot of reasons for this besides being a frugal Pennsylvania Dutchman. His argument was that if they could make beautiful pieces of furniture and art a couple hundred years ago, that there’s no reason that you can’t use a version of that to get things done today. He often preached the practice of making do with what you have. This last bit is particularly relevant. Applied to business it’s more of the bootstrap concept. Yes, it’s awesome that we have this new-fangled tool or maybe some other kind of technology or app, and they do have a place. But when it comes down to it, there’s always a way to make shit happen. The bright, shiny new tool, or the bright, next new shiny thing isn’t always needed. And if we learn and practice the basics, you can continue to push forward and succeed.
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“But when it comes down to it, there’s always a way to make shit happen. The bright, shiny new tool, or the bright, next new shiny thing isn’t always needed. “
Success Champions
“Well built is better than well bought.”
“It’s better to invest in a quality item then a cheaply and poorly made one.”
This is straightforward. It’s better to invest in a quality item then a cheaply and poorly made one. This also comes to bear as a craftsman. I make a quality product because it’s important that people receive value.
“Mind your own damned business.” My dad would criticize us for being nosy and that we should focus on our own business. And I guess his point was that if you focus on what you’re about -- what you need to do, and not worry about what other people are doing, then you can be better focused on making progress. One of the prime examples I see
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today is someone will make a post about how somebody reached out into LinkedIn InMail or messenger and they were cold calling or pitching them. They feel compelled to tell this person that it’s a horrible way to do business, that maybe they should show them how to do it better, etc. Personally, I think this is bullshit. Because as a guy who makes leather bags, I shouldn’t waste my time telling people what to do in sales. And, although it might not be the best practice for me, it might work for them. I should focus my attention instead on things like MY business of making leather bags, and not about what other people are posting on the internet. If folks stayed in their lanes, they would probably get a lot more done. And, if you have that much time to be
GRIT criticizing other people on the “interwebs,” then maybe that’s a reason you aren’t busier.
He crafts handmade, creative custom leather goods and accessories near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
So that’s my short list of interesting of things my father says and principles that he lives by daily. And hopefully, you’ve at least gained a grin or a chuckle, or learn something that you can apply to business, I know I have…
“If folks stayed in their lanes, they would probably get a lot more done. And, if you have that much time to be criticizing other people on the “interwebs,” then maybe that’s a reason you aren’t busier.”
Donald Dodson, owner of Dodson Designs, has been involved in artistic pursuits for as long as he can remember. Starting at age 16 as a sign painter assistant, and after high school, he pursued a career in graphic arts, finding his home in graphic design and web design. After an eight-year stint as a teacher, Dodson, a combat veteran, longed to return to his passion for the arts and, at 49, started a full-time leather working business.
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Success Champions
Why Your Website Probably Stinks (and 5 Tips to Fix it Fast) By Brady Smith
T
his is an abbreviated version of the process that I use when designing websites for my clients.
First, you need to realize that… Your Website Matters
“The most important thing to remember is that you must have a unified purpose for your website.”
Why? Because… Over 55% of people will search online before making a purchase decision. 38% will bounce from a website if the site is unattractive. 48% of consumers say that web design is the #1 factor in determining a business’ credibility. You stand to lose somewhere around 50% of your potential customers if you don’t nail that first impression. Now that we can all agree on that, here are 5 ways to vastly improve your website quickly & easily.
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#1 - Decide on a Purpose What is the purpose of your website? Are you educating? Selling a service? Selling a product? Trying to get leads? Trying to grow a community? Whatever it is, you need to decide on this and then audit every page to make sure your headlines, calls to action, images, copy, everything lines up with that purpose. Take however long it takes to answer this question before moving on. It will affect everything you do on your site!
#2 - Show, Don’t Tell This is slightly ironic coming from a written article… However, your website needs to be all about showing, not telling. We live in a visual world & you have precious few seconds to capture someone’s attention before they’re gone. This means that anywhere an image will work instead of text, use an image. Focus on big, attention getting images and headlines. Then have the option to “Learn More” beneath. If you can grab interest up front, they will click. But if you throw a giant chunk of text in their face, they’ll bounce.
#3 - Let “You” Shine Through People want to do business with people. If your website is a typical,
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run-of-the-mill website that looks like all the other faceless, nameless corporations out there, there’s no differentiating factor. In the crowded internet age we live in, you are what sets your business apart from your competitors. Nobody else thinks like you. Nobody else has the same gifts as you. Capitalize on your uniqueness by letting it show through in your website. This can be done through the images and styles you use, the way you write the copy, and by how other people talk about you (testimonials!). Use your own personal story to show people how you can help them reach their goals.
#4 - Go Mobile Nearly 50% of website traffic is currently (2020) mobile & it’s projected to be upwards of 75% in just a few years.
If people cannot easily navigate your website on their smartphone, they will bounce. Depending on what platform you’re using to design your website, optimizing for mobile can be tricky. However, most have a “mobile view” option where you can see how it’ll look on a phone right in the editor. Go through every page of your website and make sure that images show up correctly, spacing looks right, and text size works. Once you’ve done that, use your smartphone to check it again. Sometimes the “mobile view” won’t show you everything and it’ll look different on a real phone.
#5 - Use the Entire Page By this, I do not mean that you should have the entire page covered with content. Instead, this means to use the modern “full-screen” look over the typical older style that has bars on either side and content only in the middle.
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“People want to do business with people. If your website is a typical, run-of-the-mill website that looks like all the other faceless, nameless corporations out there, there’s no differentiating factor.”
Success Champions This one tweak will make a huge difference in modernizing your website’s look and feel. Plus it will go a long way in helping that 38% who will bounce if the site is unattractive stay and check out what you’ve got to show them!
These are 5 simple tips out of 500: but these quick fixes will basically give you a brand new website in very little time.
These are 5 simple tips out of 500: but these quick fixes will basically give you a brand new website in very little time. The most important thing to remember is that you must have a unified purpose for your website. Don’t just have stuff on there for the sake of having stuff on there. Align everything you say and show on the site with your site’s main purpose. Hopefully, these ideas will get the ball rolling for you and result in a beautiful, effective website for you and your business! WEBSITE DESIGNER, COPY
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WRITER, VOICE ARTIST, PODCASTER Brady holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and specializes in crafting effective messaging designed to get results. Whether that messaging takes the form of a conversion-centric website, sales copy, or audio, he has years of experience and training to get the job done. Brady makes his home on the edge of society - close enough for good WiFi, but far enough out to not have to worry about traffic.
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Success Champions
Stress, Health and Entrepreneurship Cheryl Meyer, Cheryl M Health Muse- Health Coach, Author, Speaker, TV Show Host, Podcaster
“As a business owner, however, although I was warned that constant stress was harming my health, I thought it was also propelling me forward and helping me get more accomplished.”
I
think most of us are aware that stress can damage our health. As a business owner, however, although I was warned that constant stress was harming my health, I thought it was also propelling me forward and helping me get more accomplished.
As humans we developed the stress mechanism in order to respond to danger in the wild. If we encountered a tiger when we were out foraging for food, our adrenalin and cortisol went into high gear, moving blood to our brains and our muscles so that we could remove ourselves quickly from the danger. In today’s environment, however, we are rarely chased by a tiger. And in my case, I let the tiger catch me. My cortisol was so depleted when I got autoimmune disease that I was almost to Addison’s disease.
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Stress is a major contributor to “leaky gut” which is the root cause of our chronic diseases, which include cancer, heart disease and autoimmune diseases. Not all stress is harmful. We all have some stress throughout our days. It is when stress becomes chronic that it becomes dangerous. And what I didn’t realize, it was also hindering, not helping, my productivity. I have learned a series of stress releasing exercises to use throughout the day. Most require no equipment and can be done in the workplace quietly without others even knowing what you are doing. All of them reset the parasympathetic nervous system and release the “steam off the instant pot”. All of them clear the head, and improve productivity, so in the end, if you do these exercises, you will be far more effective running your business. Each exercise takes less than 3 minutes and you should do one each hour throughout the day. In addition to lowering your stress, each of these exercises will slow your pulse and improve your
GRIT health. Recovery from chronic stress is not negotiable, you can either make time to rest and rejuvenate now or make time to be sick and injured later. Stress builds up all day long. Every hour, take 2-3 minutes to release the buildup by using these methods: Dr. Weil’s 4-7-8 breathing exercise 4 rounds at least 2x daily. This resets your parasympathetic nervous system. Dr. Weil is the father of Integrative Medicine. You can Google this, and learn to do it with Dr. Weil on YouTube. Take your fingers and push into your belly button and just jiggle for 1 minute. The theory is that your belly button is the beginning of our life, and through our belly button we can impact the entire body. If you are in a private space, use the Belly Button Wand. If you are in a
public space your fingers will work. This affects your reptilian brain at the back of your neck (the early brain in development) and significantly reduces your stress as proven by Dr. Emerel Mayer, executive director of the Oppenheimer Center for Stress and Resilience (uclacns.org. Stand and bounce in place every hour to break up the day. This will bring energy to the brain. Stand up by your desk, let your arms hang, and bounce. Do this for 1-2 minutes Tapping the body starting at the ankles and working up to the top of the head. Don’t hurry. Do front and back of your feet, your ankles, your calves, your thighs, your tummy, your heart zone, go over and start with one hand and tap all the way up, then do the other, now tap your shoulders, your face and then the top of your head. This should take 2 minutes. Every hour stretch at your desk. Be sure to stretch up and stretch out. You can do it seated, or you can stand. This exercise is done from a seated position. Put your hands on the side of your thighs (one hand on the outside of each thigh) then push out your thighs. Hold for 10 seconds and release. You will feel relaxation go through your entire body. Do this repeatedly for 1 minute. When fatigued, toe tap from a seated position. Just put your legs out
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“Releasing stress before it becomes chronic will enhance your mood, make you a better leader, bring you clarity, improve your memory, improve your sleep, make you more productive and help you be successful.”
Success Champions straight and tap your toes. Releasing stress before it becomes chronic will enhance your mood, make you a better leader, bring you clarity, improve your memory, improve your sleep, make you more productive and help you be successful. Cheryl Meyer suffers from autoimmune disease. She eliminated toxins and reversed her pain. Cheryl has a BA from UC-Berkeley and is a health coach from IIN. Cheryl is an award-winning author, international bestseller, health coach, speaker, local tv host and guest podcaster. Her book, It Feels Good to Feel Good, Learn to Eliminate Toxins, Reduce Inflammation and Feel Great Again has won 13 awards. It is available on Amazon. She is currently writing her second book.
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Toxins are everywhere and impacting our health and the health of our children. Eliminate the toxins now and don’t wait until they get sick and tired.” She adds, “It’s all about toxic load. Each toxin that is eliminated is one step closer to health.” She specifically works with clients with chronic illness giving them hope and helping them find solutions. She encourages you to listen to your body and to own your own health. Her website is https://cherylmhealthmuse.com
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Success Champions
What is your energetic tie to money? By Jacqueline Kane
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n this article you will learn how you feel about money, why you feel that way and what you can do now to shift into a new friendship with money.
“Everything around us is energy and we are constantly interacting with energy on all levels: Physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. “
As human beings we are all made of energy. Everything around us is energy and we are constantly interacting with energy on all levels: Physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. We are attracting and creating from these levels all the time. What is showing up for you in the areas of money? Ask yourself these questions: • Do you find money comes to you easily? • Does money leave you easily? • Do you find yourself never having enough money? • When you think about money do you find yourself
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•
• • • • •
feeling anxious, annoyed, frustrated or scared? When you think about that feeling of being anxious or annoyed, ask yourself when did I first start feeling that way around money? What comes up for you? Was it last week or last month? Did your mother or father think about money in that way? Did they use disempowered words when they talked about money? Did your parents argue a lot about money and worry often about not having enough of it?
Can you see how your thoughts may be influenced by your parents or caregivers’ beliefs around money? We have had these thoughts for so long that we believe them and we think these thoughts are our own. When in fact we are living with beliefs and
GRIT thoughts that have been passed down from our parents. If you believe in the principal of cause and effect then you know we are constantly bringing to us what we focus on. • So, what kind of income have you created for yourself ? • Do you find that you create more debt or more income and savings? • Does money come in as fast as it goes out? These questions can focus your thoughts which is the first step to increasing your bottom line. • Are you where you would like to be? What would you like your revenue or bank account to be at the end of 2020? Let’s get clear in how you feel and act around money. One way to do that is by getting out a piece of paper and drawing a line down the middle of the paper. On the left side write down all of your beliefs around money. How you feel about it, the thoughts you say about it and the words you use to describe it. Usually these are our restrictions that keep us stuck from being able to receive more money. Then on the right-hand side write down your new vision about money. The vision you would like to have about money.
Allow your creative side to come out in this and really get into this exercise. The more you use your imagination and get into the details the more your mind will start to believe these concepts so that you can attract more fun around money and your ability to having more. Mental practice can get you closer to where you want to be in life, and it can prepare you for success! A study looking at brain patterns in weightlifters found that the patterns activated when a weightlifter lifted hundreds of pounds were similarly activated when they only imagined lifting. In some cases, research has revealed that mental practices are almost as effective as true physical practice and that doing both is more effective than either alone. Quoted from A. LeVan, “Seeing is Believing: The Power of Visualization”, (2009)
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“we are living with beliefs and thoughts that have been passed down from our parents. “
Success Champions Physchology Today
“Creating a successful energetic tie to money can improve your bottom line and make success easier.”
You can increase your revenue and return on investment by doing the same thing as these athletes. Decide what you would like your revenue to be at the end of this year and look at what is in the way of you achieving that. Is there restriction or expansion in this goal? Then spend 5 minutes daily to visualize you achieving this goal. Creating a successful energetic tie to money can improve your bottom line and make success easier. Jacqueline Kane, Medical Intuitive, supports women in discovering the crucial hidden links between their physical pain and finances, and their ability to live a full life. With over 15-years in private practice as a healer, and over 30-years
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in health care, Jacqueline has merged her innate wisdom with a multitude of healing modalities to create a unique, resultsoriented method of healing. If you’re ready to reach your health and wealth goals today visit www.JacquelineKane.com.
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Success Champions
5 Things you can do to audit your own brand By Stephanie Powell
A “A brand’s story is what first opens the door for you to begin to establish relationships with your audience. Relationships that lead to trust, loyalty, and (you guessed it) sales!”
strong, authentic, intentional brand is a CRAZY, powerful tool (think: Disney, Apple, Nike). Your brand tells a story, whether you want it to or not. Why not control that narrative, instead of allowing someone else to do it for you based on what they think it is? If you don’t tell them what the story is, they’ll make one up based on their own assumptions (and we all know what assuming does, do we not?). Your brand story is too important to give anyone else the mic but you. A brand’s story is what first opens the door for you to begin to establish relationships with your audience. Relationships that lead to trust, loyalty, and (you guessed it) sales! Because your story is what catches their attention and makes them say “These guys. I want to be a part of what they’re doing. They get me and we care about the same things.” The audit below focuses on just your
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Brand Identity. Your brand and your brand identity are NOT the same. Your brand identity is made up of the visual representations of your brand (logo, fonts, colors, etc.). Your brand is what everyone else says it is (not what you say it is, ya dig?). If you’re reading this and suddenly feel very unsure as to whether or not your brand is where you need/ want it to be and telling the right story, invest in a professional brand identity audit. Brand identity audits involve taking a deep dive to figure out whether or not your brand is performing the way you want, saying what you want, and talking to who you want. And if it isn’t, what steps do you need to take to get it there? It will not only give you invaluable information, but insights, recommendations, and often action items as well. Brand Audits are one of my FAVORITE things to do for clients. No b.s. Here’s a very simple 5-step version for you to do yourself.
1
Make sure you have clear and definitive answers to the following five questions (it’s a five within five, I know). For funsies, I included some answers in parentheses, just as a guide. Knowing these answers is the first step in achieving brand clarity. If you don’t know what your brand is supposed to be and who it’s supposed to serve, how can you evaluate its effectiveness?
GRIT 1. Who are you? (Donnie Boivin) 2. What do you do? (creating business freedom) 3. Who do you serve? (small business owners) 4. What problem do you solve? (hitting a plateau and not knowing how to scale after experiencing success in the past) 5. How do you do this differently? (by teaching them to become the face of the company)
2
We already know your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what everyone else says it is. So, what do you want them to say? Make a list of 5-7 adjectives you’d want people to use to describe how they FEEL about your brand. That’s the keyword: feel. How do you want your “voice” to sound when they’re reading or listening to the content you’re putting out there? I’ve attached a list of words I use during strategy sessions with my clients to get you started. And no, you can’t have 10 or 15 or 27. Keep it between five and seven, mmkay pumpkins?
3 4
Make a list of your brand identity assets. I’ve got another list for you to peruse. It’s far from exhaustive, but gets you rolling. Grab all that apply. Take each item from your brand asset list and compare it to your answers from questions one and two. Do they match? If the answer is no, try to assign the word that best fits that asset. Maybe you wanted it to be approachable and informative, but it’s coming across as arrogant and condescending. Now listen, it will do no good if you aren’t honest, so be straight up in your answers. Oh, and pro-tip?? Ask other people (within your business as well as some trusted people on the outside) if they think it matches up. We’re often way too close to our brands to be objective. And when you think of who you’re going to ask for help, think about who most closely matches your ideal client. That is, after all, who all this is for anyway.
5
Look at the language you use with your branding. Social posts, articles, emails, product info, etc (hint: that’s your brand voice). How do they match up with your answers from questions one and two? Again, if there’s some misalignment,
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“We’re often way too close to our brands to be objective. And when you think of who you’re going to ask for help, think about who most closely matches your ideal client. That is, after all, who all this is for anyway.”
Success Champions make a note and jot down words you could have used instead. Example: if I wanted my brand to feel highly intellectual (which I do, for the most part) and appeal to only the top percentage of academics, my love of 90’s words and slang would have to go bye-bye. Caaaaause, thems don’t match. BONUS item numero 6: Take a look at your colors and compare them to the color psych chart below. It is by no means a full, comprehensive list. Still, considering there’s an entire branch of psychology devoted to color, this is an excellent jumping-off point to get you started and pointed in the right direction. Is there wiggle room with this? Pretty much always. That being said...if you want a brand that makes your customers feel calm and at ease, maybe don’t go with bright reds and neons. Just sayin’... Mad props to Michele Hamel for her hella dope color psych chart! Of course, there’s definitely more that goes into a full-scale brand identity audit, but this is a perfect place to start. Fair warning: the closer you are to your brand and the more personal it is to you (maybe the logo is super symbolic, or the colors are for your grandmother, etc.), the harder this will be, friends. And I get it. Really, I do. But if your brand is about your audience then you HAVE to create and design a brand and brand strategy with them in mind. If you don’t reach your people, it doesn’t matter how great your product/service is because they’ll never know about it. And people rarely purchase things they aren’t even aware exist. This does NOT mean there can’t be parts of you in your brand. In point of fact, there should be. Chances are, your brand was borne out of a deeply personal and intense passion, so how could it not be, at the very least, a small extension of you? But, going back to the previous example, if your brand is all about instilling calm and peace of mind, it don’t matter how much you love neon pink. That ain’t the route to pursue. And I’ll say it one more time: seek out your ideal client to help you in this process. Let them HELP you. The
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GRIT more you involve your clients in the product/service we’re asking them to pay money for, the more vested and engaged they become. And that, my friends, is what we call a win-win.
(6 dogs, 2 cats); the only way to properly usher in her ultimate dream of opening an animal sanctuary.
“The more you involve your clients in the product/service we’re asking them to pay money for, the more vested and engaged they become. And that, my friends, is what we call a win-win.”
Happy auditing! Got questions? Fire away! stephanie@morepowelltoya.com Stephanie is a brand strategist and creative designer specializing in brand + web design solutions. But more than that, she’s a: total nerd, animal obsessor, lion chaser, Aggie, lover of Jesus, breaker of molds, crusher of boxes, and a fierce believer in the badass magic you (and only you) can give the world. Her business began as a leap of faith after 13 years in public education, she’s got a dope husband, and her own little mini zoo
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Success Champions
Asset Protection Strategies As You Grow Your Business By Karen Johnson
“Hey business owner! You, yes, you. What happens to your company when you die?”
H
ey business owner! You, yes, you. What happens to your company when you die?
Do you have an LLC, a C-Corp, an S-Corp, a Partnership? Do you have an Operating Agreement, Articles of Incorporation or did you just fill out a form online to create your company and you have none of those items? Does your business partner obtain the right of first refusal when you die? Are they the ones to purchase your interest upon that event or does your interest transfer to your estate? Will they buy your interest in the company before your family does? If there is something called a buy-sell agreement, is it funded? There is a game plan for what happens to your company
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when you die, the default instruction manual will always be the business organizations code of your state governing what happens next, but wouldn’t it be better if you controlled the continuity of your company or at least controlled how it will wind down when you are gone? You can do that. In the United States, we live in an asset distribution system. Every single asset you own will transfer according to the laws of the state you live in as there is no federal probate law. Your real estate can be transferred via deeds such as a transfer on death deed or a document known as a lady bird deed also known as an enhanced life estate deed. These deeds can transfer real estate, that includes mineral interests and timeshares, upon the death of the owner and avoid the probate process. Any financial account may transfer via the contract governing the account. It may be a pay-on-death account and in need of listed beneficiaries in the documentation. It could also be a Joint Tenancy with
GRIT Right of Survivorship (JTWROS) account so that the transfer provisions are a part of the account creation. As a cautionary tale, do not make assumptions regarding the transfer provisions of these joint accounts. A joint account is not a JTWROS account unless specifically identified as a survivorship account. In that case, each joint owner has their own share and beneficiaries must be named in the documentation of the account. Without such named beneficiaries, the account assets will be subject to distribution in the probate court. Your company interest will also transfer according to its operating agreement and state laws where no agreement is in place. You see a pattern here, right? Documents can control the distribution of real estate, accounts, and any financial interest you own on the date of your death, and that includes any business interest you own. Documents control our financial lives and yes, that includes your company. The operating agreement and/or articles/ and/ or by-laws act as the instruction manual for your company. Similar to the game of Monopoly, the rules can be complex, but when there are problems in the company, the rule book provides the structure needed
to traverse challenging times. Common challenging times for a business owner are divorce, bankruptcy and death. Will your business partner’s divorce effect your company? Probably. Will their bankruptcy effect your company? Probably. Death? Definitely. But you can control the extent of which the business is affected by these events by creating agreements that steer and control your company in the direction that you want should these challenges arise. Without such agreements, the operation of your company is subject to the laws of the state. A good example may be what happens to your company in the event of a divorce. Does your spouse have an interest in your company? In a community property state such as Texas, your spouse will most likely have an interest in the company since income into the marital estate is community property. This is where business owners need to consider multiple legal documents to protect a business interest such as a premarital and/or post marital agreement in
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“Your company interest will also transfer according to its operating agreement and state laws where no agreement is in place.�
Success Champions addition to the company operating agreement reflecting options upon divorce. Generally, electing federal or state exemption law controls protected assets and assets exempt from creditors in the event of a bankruptcy. The structure of the company is the determining factor as to whether any assets of the business owner are subject to bankruptcy proceedings.
“Reviewing asset protection strategies with an attorney protects your future.”
Creating a company and forging a new path is an exciting and scary event for an entrepreneur. Reviewing asset protection strategies with an attorney protects your future. The structure of your company and its foundation are dependent upon strong supporting documents. Put them in place so that you stay in
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charge of protecting your legacy. Karen Telschow Johnson is an asset protection attorney, who focuses on estate planning and elder law. Licensed in Texas for almost 20 years, Karen is a graduate from Texas A & M University and Texas A & M University School of Law. As a Principal at Telschow Johnson Law, PLLC, Ms. Johnson is a member of the State Bar College of Texas, the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys, Texas Association of Elder Law Attorneys and the Tarrant County Probate Bar. Active in the community, Ms. Johnson is the Board Vice Chair for North Central Texas Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, Care & Prepare, Treasurer, and on the Board of Directors for 60 and Better. She is a proud mom to her two children and has become an expert in vacuuming up after her rescue dog Jenger, a lab/shepherd mix.
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Success Champions
The Nitty Gritty of a Great Call to Action By Lori Lyons
A “As smart as humans are - we still need to be told where to go, what to do and how to do it. Our website is no different. We need to tell our visitors what their next step should be.”
ll businesses want more leads they can turn into clients and into bottom line profits - right? Your website can do this for you by turning visitors to your site into bona fide prospects. Wait - how? Simply by adding or optimizing a great call to action on your website. As smart as humans are - we still need to be told where to go, what to do and how to do it. Our website is no different. We need to tell our visitors what their next step should be. So what - exactly - is a Call to Action? A Call to Action - or CTA is a request for the reader or listener to take another step - to actually do something that leads this person - in the case of marketing - to become a prospect then client. Contact Now, Click Here, Buy Now, Subscribe are all examples of a typical CTA.
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The simplest CTA is usually the Contact Us form. An unscientific guestimate says that 99.9% of websites have a contact form of some sort or another. To make this into a true “lead gen” action, simply have a button on each page of your website that says “Contact Us” and then link to your contact form. That’s it… you’ve got a lead generating call to action. Just a note about your Contact Form - make it simple. If it’s not simple and you use this form as a means to qualify your prospect, you may be limiting your business growth. Just ask for name, phone, email and a message. Make them required if you must. I’ve seen several companies ask “Do you have XXX amount to budgeted for whatever I’m selling?” if you have this type of question on your form - here’s why you may not want to include it: If they do not, or haven’t thought about the amount budgeted, they are ONLY making a decision based on cost. They are not considering the value of the benefits they will receive by working with you. They are not receiving a personal consultation with you or a member of your team that can ask the real qualifying questions. How many times have you purchased a product or service that you thought would be too expensive but ended up seeing the additional value in the additional cost? Let the prospect
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(and you) make a decision based on value not dollars. You know the questions to ask to weed out tire kickers. (FYI - This is an okay question to ask on a contact form - how did you hear about us? I’ll let you do that! This question will give you a bit of a head start on qualifying. Warm referral lead, click from a google ad? Big difference.) (Hint- test your contact form occasionally to make sure it’s working and doing what you need it to do - especially make sure you are receiving them!) Having a prospect contact you immediately is ideal but how many times does that happen? More often than not, you have to lead them and drive them to an action with content and specific next steps to take. Let’s look at what makes a good call to action - and an amazing lead generation action for your website.
Writing a Great Call to Action A great call to action has 3 components. It must be non-threatening and no obligation. (Your visitor is not giving up their first born, a pint of blood and/or their right hand when they sign up.) A sense of urgency. This offer will explode and be gone forever in the next 30 seconds if you don’t (insert action) NOW! Offering an expiration date of consequence of waiting will spur a decision to take action. No one wants to be left behind… do they? An action (it IS a call to action after all!) What do you want the visitor to do? Download a checklist? Schedule an appointment? Fly to the moon? Contact you? A last thought about a Call to Action - make sure it’s on EVERY PAGE
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“Just a note about your Contact Form make it simple. If it’s not simple and you use this form as a means to qualify your prospect, you may be limiting your business growth.”
Success Champions and POST (Blog.) A simple “email me” is just not enough.
“A last thought about a Call to Action - make sure it’s on EVERY PAGE and POST (Blog.) A simple “email me” is just not enough.”
How to start? First, finish Success Champions magazine, then immediately make a CTA audit on your website. Make sure that your CTA’s are clear and easy to find. If not, here’s your homework. Start working on your CTA’s now. Track to see the difference and the increase in your bottom line. Amazing right! Lori is, ironically, a non technical person in a technical world. As a marketing strategist and owner of a website design company, Lori has over 25 years as an entrepreneur and marketer. Her program, Make Your Marketing Simple, helps confused Encore Entrepreneurs navigate today’s marketing and technical maze. She uses simple terms
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and explains strategies in a way that makes sense. She is currently writing a book for Encore Entrepreneurs that will help them to profit from their experience. Lori lives in Atlanta with her husband and son. She loves her Atlanta Braves baseball, any football game that is playing on TV and Angel’s Envy bourbon.
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Success Champions The reason brand builder marketing will not work for your business is because you don’t have a brand, yet. It does nothing to set you apart from your competition. It does not target your ideal clients. It does not mention your Market Dominating Position (MDP), in most cases. And it does not use the Conversion Equation.
Joint Ventures and Strategic Alliances By Wally Carmichael
Y “There are a several cash holes a new business must address and plug up right away.”
ou’re a new business owner and you need to start generating a positive cashflow right away. This sounds like a “no kidding” statement, right? But did you realize, few businesses start generating profits in the first couple of years? This does not have to be you. And if this is you, get ready to turn that around over the next couple of months. There are a several cash holes a new business must address and plug up right away. Just a few include suppliers, waist, employee theft, financing interest, and the list goes on. One of the biggest drains on your cashflow is ineffective marketing and advertising. Marketing and Advertising are certainly important for the longterm growth of your business. The problem is, most business owners come out the gate trying to market like they are a Billion Dollar business. You do what’s called Brand Builder Marketing.
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As powerful as the MDP and Conversion Equation are, I am not going to teach these marketing strategies today, because you need immediate profits. Just know, your MDP is what sets you apart from your competition. And the Conversion Equation is the most powerful marketing strategy. What I’m about to share with you is, by far, the best way for all new businesses to generate leads, get to know the needs of your market, start building a reputation as the leader in your market and generate immediate cashflow. That strategy is Joint Ventures and Strategic Alliances. You may have heard about Joint Ventures (JV). You may even believe you have a few JVs already set up. But chances are, you have not properly monetized your JV partners. One of the easiest and fastest ways to grow any business is through monetizing your JV partnerships. And best of all, in the vast majority of cases, there are NO upfront costs associated with using a JV strategy. JVs involve two or more businesses forming a partnership to share
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markets or endorse a product or service to their customer base… and then exchange a share of the revenue from the sales made from the relationship. The best way to get started is to ask two key questions: Who are my ideal clients? Who else already has access or a database to my ideal clients? Once you make a list of all the businesses who serve your clients in a different and non-competitive way, it’s time to make a very compelling offer. Being unique, or having an interesting twist or hook, will definitely increase your chances of getting noticed. But regardless of how you approach your prospective partner, it’s important to craft the offer in a manner that shows the benefits to your potential partner.
There are a few tricks to motivate a potential partner. Look at all the potential benefits your partnership provides. Don’t stick with the obvious. Dig deep, and list all the benefits they get from doing this venture. Invite them to experience your product or service for themselves. Let them try it at no cost if possible. Remember, when they endorse you, they are putting their reputation on the line. It’s critical that you show your potential partner how their clients or prospects will benefit from your offering, and if possible, always position the offer so your partner gets to take all the credit and looks like the hero for recommending you. If your partnership will make your partner look good, what will that translate into? More money? Of course. A JV relationship can also open up new distribution channels that you both
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“One of the easiest and fastest ways to grow any business is through monetizing your JV partnerships.”
Success Champions can exploit… or reveal new markets for you both to enter. Chances are great that you will both increase your opt-in lists, allowing additional sales to occur in the future as well as the present. I can’t stress to you enough the fact that there’s got to be something different your JV relationship offers. Once you get this process down, you can create Joint Ventures with others in your event chain.
“Being unique, or having an interesting twist or hook, will definitely increase your chances of getting noticed.”
Wally Carmichael is a leader in Living a Life of Abundance. His No BS, fun and exciting approach to life and business stem from his tough upbringing and 25 years as a US Army Airborne Medic. Wally authored “No BS Business Breakthrough - How to Double Your Lead Conversions and Triple Your Revenue in Less than 45 minutes.” His obsession is uncovering hidden revenue in your business without you spending any
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more on marketing and advertising. Wally’s world travels, extensive connections and ability to create unique business strategies make him a popular resource for business owners who are ready to finally live the life of Abundance and Prosperity you know you deserve. www.WallyCarmichael.com
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Success Champions
tech Corner
The Five Essential Elements of an Email Marketing Campaign By Kevin Snow
“With the onset of messaging and social marketing, email has lost a bit of its luster, but it still boasts the highest ROI for any marketing channel, and is the best way to build an ‘owned’ audience that you can continue to market to in the future.”
D
id you know the first marketing email was sent in 1978? That email resulted in $13 million in sales; and kicked off what has become one of the most highly used marketing channels even to this day. With the onset of messaging and social marketing, email has lost a bit of its luster, but it still boasts the highest ROI for any marketing channel, and is the best way to build an “owned” audience that you can continue to market to in the future. Since that first email, email use has continued to grow with over 269 billion emails currently being sent each day. That is a lot of competition for your audience’s attention. And that number is going to keep growing
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too. So how do you make sure that your emails keep your audience’s interest and don’t end up in the junk folder? So first off, you need to understand this one thing. What is an email campaign? An email campaign is an email or series of emails sent from a business to one or more customers or prospects (contacts) designed to get the recipients to take a specific action, engage with your business, and generate more leads and sales for your business. An email campaign is normally initiated (triggered) by a specific behavior or action by the contact. Before launching a successful email campaign, there are a few elements that you need to consider.
1. What do you want the email campaign to accomplish? Now I know it is really tempting when you get an idea to rush out and put it into action (I have a client like this), but you need to slow down. If you want your campaign to be successful, you’ve got to step back and think about what you’re trying to accomplish. Typical objectives for an email campaign include: Welcoming new subscribers and telling them about your business and values so you start to build a relationship with them.
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Boosting engagement with your content and your business, whether that’s promoting a webinar or driving traffic to specific content. Nurturing existing subscribers by providing something they’ll value. Re-engaging subscribers who haven’t been particularly active. Segmenting your subscribers so you can send more targeted email marketing campaigns. Driving Sales to online products by highlighting best sellers, promoting new releases, or making product recommendations. Helping B2B prospects navigate their buyers’ journey in a way that results in a sale for your sales team through the use of targeted content based on their current sales stage. Understanding your goals will help you when you start writing the copy and designing the visuals for your
emails.
2. What does the email campaign automation look like? Based on your objectives for the campaign, you need to identify a few key aspects of the campaign itself: What triggers the campaign to start for a contact? Is it an opt-in form submission? A specific page on your website being visited? A prospect hitting a specific sales stage? Or for e-commerce, an abandoned shopping cart? What is the timing and frequency of the emails? The time of day users receive emails can directly contribute to performance indicators like openrate and click-through-rate. The best times in general to send emails is 8am and 4pm on weekdays. The frequency at which you disseminate your messages also plays a major
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“When designing your email copy, it is important to remember there are two key items you need to pay attention to: the subject and the body.”
Success Champions role in performance. Contacts are increasingly subject to email fatigue if they are constantly inundated with emails from you. Try to stay at no more than two a week. What Triggers the campaign to stop? There is nothing more annoying that getting an email asking you to do something that you already did. So, when planning your campaigns, you need to include conditions to stop sending people emails if specific activities are completed. IE., if they go back and purchase what was in their abandoned shopping cart.
“Don’t go Leo Tolstoy on your emails. This isn’t War and Peace. Keep it short, clear, simple, and direct.”
3. Have great content: Copy and Visuals Now that you have the objectives and the campaign design down you can start building your emails. When designing your email copy, it is important to remember there are two key items you need to pay attention to: the subject and the body. While the subject contains the least amount of information, it is the most important part of the email. It is what recipients will use to decide whether they open your email or not. It should be short, personalized, and action oriented. Getting your contacts to open your emails is only the first step though. The next step is getting them to click through and take the specific action you set as the goal for your campaign. Here are some tips to help make your copy effective: Don’t talk at your subscribers, talk
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with them. Speak their language, address their specific concerns and desires, be your authentic self with them. Don’t fall into the trap that many emails do and focus on what you are trying to sell instead of having a conversation with your contacts. Don’t go Leo Tolstoy on your emails. This isn’t War and Peace. Keep it short, clear, simple, and direct. Include visuals. A picture is worth a thousand words. Put a banner image at the top, and smaller images sprinkled throughout depending on your campaign’s goals. The preferred ratio for text to image is 60% text to 40% image. Personalize if possible. If you’ve collected first and last name, or other personal information, make use of this to add a personal touch to the email. Use personalized tags, write in a one-to-one conversation mode, and ask for their feedbacks. When using Merge tags for personalization, test before sending. You don’t want your subscribers to end up with ‘Hi First Name’ as email greeting. (Trust me, this comes from experience.) Responsive design is an important consideration when designing your email. Make sure your email looks just as great for your mobile readers as it does for desktop users. Include several calls-to-action. Don’t only put your CTA at the bottom of your email. Ensure your readers have several options to click through; phrase them differently so you don’t
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4. Are you prepared to review your results? Your work isn’t over when you hit send. You need to be able to track some key statistics about your email campaigns. In the beginning you will want to track the following key performance indicators: Deliverability measures the rate at which emails reach your intended subscribers’ inboxes. Open rate is the percentage of people that open your email once it reaches their inbox. Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the percentage of people that click on your CTAs. Unsubscribes measures the number of people who opt out of your email list once they receive an email from you Spam Complaint Rate is the percentage of recipients that report your email as spam.
Once you’ve finished your first campaign, you’ll find that it gets easier and easier to go from just an idea to a completed campaign. You’ll start to know what works and what doesn’t. But the most important thing to remember is this: Treat your subscribers like humans. You can build a highly engaged audience if you keep this golden rule top-of-mind in every email you send. Your subscribers want to hear from you, and they want to relate to you, or they never would have opted into your list. Be a resource for them and they will look forward to opening emails from you just like they would from any of their friends. Kevin Snow is the founder of Time On Target, a digital marketing agency that helps businesses effectively use technology to grow their business. Kevin has helped companies all across the United States shorten their sales cycle and increase their closing rates by utilizing sales automation to increase the time sales teams are in front of prospects selling. You can reach Kevin at kevin.snow@time-on-target.com.
As you start collecting data you will want to start using A/B Split testing to test alternative subject lines or calls to action to see if you can increase your open and click through rates. Be sure to only test one variable at a time so you can be sure of the impact your changes are having. Most email service providers will have A/B testing built into their software, which will make it easy for you to compare email results without much manual work.
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“You’ll start to know what works and what doesn’t. But the most important thing to remember is this: Treat your subscribers like humans.”
Success Champions
The outsourcing Corner
Author or Speaker? How and When Do You Hire a Virtual Assistant? By Lorianne Vaughan Speaks
“You’ll want to think about spending your hard-earned dollars on an assistant (or a team) who knows your specific goals; and understands your purpose and mission as an author, speaker or podcaster.”
O
ne of the biggest mistakes people make is hiring the kid down the street for cheap. Even though that kid knows some things about social media and technology they’ll never be able to help you run your business past those few minor tasks. And, they don’t have (normally) the experience to deal with changing business priorities. You’ll want to think about spending your hard-earned dollars on an assistant (or a team) who knows your specific goals; and understands your purpose and mission as an author, speaker or podcaster. Here’s a helpful list of what qualifies
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someone to be a VA: They are current or past fulltime admins who want a few extra hours to supplement their income. They are self-motivated They stay on task and aren’t easily distracted They have strong communication skills They have experience with the kind of work for the project you need help completing. When you hire someone, who has the time management mastery down, as well as the insider knowledge and resources specifically tailored to help your area of focus, the results can be magical. In the January issue, I gave many sources to find virtual assistants for any small business. This month, I wanted to focus on the speaker/ author/podcasting space. This community is filled with amazing people with great stories and programs they offer to the world. That doesn’t mean they are great business owners! As we all are learning to up our game in the Success Champions Facebook group, and other trainings from Donnie. He says you need to delegate so you are spending your time on your high-priority, revenuedriven capabilities. If you are a speaker/author/podcaster – then you should be focusing on your message, writing that book and taping your shows. Virtual assistants could take over tasks such as:
GRIT Guest scheduling and coordination Production Social media posting (you need to be consistent) Invoicing/QuickBooks Proofing/editing your books, blogs and articles Researching new stages to speak from Data Entry CRM updates Travel/Logistics Just plain organizing your life! I have a client who moved from an income of $1500 a month to six figures just by hiring her first VA to take over all the minutiae. Consider what you could do if you had an extra 10-20 hours a week! How do you know if you need a virtual assistant? If you’re spending forty percent or more of your time doing administrative duties, you need someone on your team. And when you let them help you with those kinds of tasks, get ready for the freedom to write, tape your message, and step onto stages more often because you’ll actually free up your schedule enough to be able to do what YOU do best. Virtual assistants can work on things like calendars, bookings, editing, social media, and so much more. You cannot scale yourself, but you can economically hire a VA for as little as 5 hours a week.
your first helper is scary. But not as scary as burning out and failing in your business because you didn’t have the time, energy or knowledge to do what you needed to do to make it all work. Lorianne Speaks is an expert in the area of Speaker/Author/Podcaster support. She amplifies the visibility of Authors/ Speakers/Messengers while they do what they love - SPEAK! Lorianne has helped spearhead multiple best-selling book campaigns - editing, proofing, through to launch and social media marketing to help authors create buzz and momentum throughout the social media platforms and increasing their message World-Wide. Lorianne and her team have made it their mission to empower these messengers to deliver their message by handling the rest of the details! https://www. LVSConsultingServices.com.
Everyone in business needs a support staff. Taking the leap to hire
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“If you’re spending forty percent or more of your time doing administrative duties, you need someone on your team.”
Success Champions
Sassy Social Media
A Pinterest Profile that Works for You By Sarah Ankney
L “Pinterest is a platform with two benefits: social media and a search engine.”
ooking for a new platform to get your content out there? Pinterest is a platform with two benefits: social media and a search engine. There are over 200 million users and 80% of them have bought from Pinterest. When your profile is set up correctly, it draws people to you and increases your influence, audience, email list, group members, and downloads for those of your that are podcasters. Let’s talk content for Pinterest. Content is what helps you be seen on Pinterest as well as makes your profile effective. Here are some types of content you can post on this platform: • • • • •
Blog posts Videos YouTube Videos Freebies Podcasts
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• • • • •
Guest Appearances Facebook Groups Challenges Digital Products Any type of content with a link
Content makes the world go around on social media, so it is important that you have content to post, as well as, future content to place on all platforms including Pinterest. I recommend you have content to post so that you can have an effective profile and get the traction you need and want on this platform. The other important feature since this is a search engine is to make sure your profile and content is SEO rich and has effective hashtags to ensure you are getting seen not only in Pinterest searches, but also in a Google search. Find keywords and hashtags that work with your content so that when people do a search, you pop up in the feeds and are seen, because that is the ultimate goal for your profile. Hashtags increase searchability as well as increase your influence on the platform. You want to be seen and build the influence
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and goals you have for that platform. What do you need to have an effective profile on Pinterest? I recommend setting up a personal profile and converting it to a business profile. This will give you ease of access to your content and ability to post your content. There are several things you can do to have a profile that will ensure you get the views and followers you need to be successful: • Profile picture of yourself or your logo in the size of 180 x 180 px (preferably a headshot of yourself) • Clearly identify who you are and what you do as your title • Claim your website • Include your business email • Have an SEO rich bio including hashtags with a link to all your other platforms (link tree is recommended here) • 10 boards with covers that
•
• • • •
• • • •
are in your field of expertise (600 x 600 px images) Ensure SEO rich as well as hashtags, in your board descriptions as well as your link to other platforms Make sure you complete 20 pins per board with rich descriptions as well Pins should be are 1000 x 1500 px for optimal size You should have 2 boards with covers that are personal for people to get to know you Add new boards monthly so that clientele knows you are still active, and because optimal board numbers are minimum of 15 to 20 boards so you can grow your account Actively follow those that are in your field of expertise Actively follow the followers Actively follow your icons Have fun with Pinterest, use
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“Content makes the world go around on social media, so it is important that you have content to post, as well as, future content to place on all platforms including Pinterest.”
Success Champions it during your “downtime” • Set personal pins to secret if you do not want people to see them • Make sure to pin other people’s content for minimum of 20 a day
“Pinterest can be a powerful tool in your arsenal.”
It’s important to remember that Pinterest information will last four to six months in this feed. Whereas on Facebook, it will last five minutes. If nobody interacts. That’s what’s nice about this. You have 200 to 300 million users on Pinterest. People are seeking to learn stuff from your blogs, or to purchase your goods and show up as an expert. It’s important that you are noticed. Pinterest can be a powerful tool in
your arsenal. When used properly, it can be used to increase your audience, downloads and more. Don’t be afraid to use Pinterest to help you in your business as well as life. Enjoy your Pinterest adventures and in no time, you will be gaining followers and views like a boss! Sarah Ankney of Sassy Pinterest is a Pinterest Account Manager. She wants to empower your business with a bit of magic to help you get visible. Sassy Pinterest creates graphics and descriptions as well as manages your Pinterest account so that you can do all the things you need to do and drive traffic to your business. If you need assistance in your business to get traffic to all your sites, please contact Sarah Ankney to add another powerful marketing tool. linktr.ee/sassyempower
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Success Champions
Networking. It’s more than giving away business cards. By Melissa Love
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etworking is a vital skill that benefits you in ways you can’t imagine. Keep in mind though, that networking isn’t a quick one and done solution. It’s a long game of building relationships.
“We are often haunted that somebody will see the real you and you won’t measure up, and your cover will be blown. “
Finding yourself alone in a room full of strangers or needing to work with someone from a different department demands you find ways to break the ice. But communication skills among people are vastly different and, unfortunately, one of man’s basic needs is safety. We put up barriers to protect ourselves. We put on masks that conceal our real selves. We are often haunted that somebody will see the real you and you won’t measure up, and your cover will be blown. I spent 20 years working in the fast-paced world of marketing. It was vital we kept our multi-million dollar-clients happy. For twenty years, I changed my personality to fit the
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needs of my clients—to make them more comfortable. All this creates a self-consciousness that actually hinders us, not helps us. So how do we create relationships that really matter? Relationships built on mutual respect and where we can truly lean on each other, get help and celebrate each other? I help others by conducting networking, sales empowerment and employee engagement workshops that combine low-pressure exercises and entertaining games to help employees learn new skills, find things in common and share laughs and common experiences. This builds confidence, takes you out of your comfort zone and forms lasting relationships. Here’s some tips to help you connect.
BE A GIVER The #1 thing to remember is to be a GIVER. A giver is looking to expand their network and is interested in
GRIT giving referrals. They care about getting to know others and finding out what you have in common. They want to hear about what your passions are, about what keeps you motivated, about your family and, then finally, your business. A TAKER is someone who controls the entire conversation—sometimes these folks are called compulsive talkers. Their first and only interest is to sell you something. They only think about themselves and how they can profit. When you give, others naturally want to give back to you.
FIND THE LONER It’s intimidating to see a room full of people who are already engaged in conversation. Look for someone who has just entered the room or someone standing by him/herself. They will be quite relieved to see you approach. Have your opening line and first question ready.
ASK QUESTIONS
And practice active listening—the kind of listening that requires you to be totally focused on the speaker, listening and not thinking about what you’ll say next. You’ll find out things you have in common which is a great foundation for building relationships. If they mention an industry or a recreation activity you know nothing about simply state that and lean in to learn more.
SIX-FOOT RULE It’s important to network at all times. Whether in the office or at clubs and associations, remember the six-foot rule. That is, when you come within six feet of someone, look up and say hello. It’s that simple. This opens the line of communication right then and there. And if a conversation doesn’t begin there, you’ve made yourself known and began the process of being recognized and remembered. Everybody Up! offers a variety of workshops to open up lines
One of the quickest ways to break the ice is to ask questions. People love to talk about themselves. Instead of asking “What do you do?” ask, “What do you love to do?” This question will put a smile on nearly 88% of the people you encounter and allows you to shift the conversation instantly to one with deeper meaning. Sure, you can always circle back around to, “What do you do?” This alternative question leaves people feeling positive emotions about you – exactly what you want!
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“When you give, others naturally want to give back to you.”
Success Champions of communication, break down barriers and teaches us to be our authentic selves. We currently offer the following workshops: Authentic Leadership, Communication, Public Speaking Confidence Building, Networking (sales & job search), Destress/Reconnect and Teambuilding.
“One of the quickest ways to break the ice is to ask questions. People love to talk about themselves.”
Melissa spent the first 20 years of her career in marketing working the front lines with multi-million-dollar clients like Trump Entertainment Resorts, RollsRoyce, Subway, Pizza Hut, Indiana Department of Transportation and the Rose-Hulman Institute. In 2011 she fell into improv and found it could conquer her fear of public speaking and allowed her to always be her authentic self. Because of the strong connectedness and 100% acceptance, improv provided her a freedom she’d never experienced before. Shared laughter, shared positive experiences, strong community, stress relief and group therapy all rolled up together…that’s the power of improv. She now provides workshops to companies
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nationwide to inspire human connection, kindness and laughter in the workplace. If you’re looking to build bridges that connect managers to their team and attract inspired employees to grow your business Everybody Up! can help. For more information, contact Melissa Love at 512-695-9144 or email her at melissa@everybodyuptx.com.
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Success Champions
How to Self-Publish Like a Boss By Laura Kandewan
S “You are in charge of the direction as well as other advantages such as making more money, having total control, and getting your book to print faster.”
elf-publishing offers you the author the means to deal directly with the printing company as opposed to a traditional publishing company. By taking this route, you are primarily responsible for the distribution, promotion, and financing of your book. You are in charge of the direction as well as other advantages such as making more money, having total control, and getting your book to print faster. There is a great deal of work involved, but if done with care, one can create many streams of income. A published author is viewed as a subject matter expert in their field, leveraging unlimited amount of credibility. A published author can easily choose to transition into public speaking, using their book as a platform.
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Becoming a published author is rewarding; you will be challenged to wear many hats during the writing process because let’s face it, you are the driving force behind your pen or keyboard. Begin shifting your mindset to start thinking about not just writing, but also budgeting, marketing, and recognizing your target audience, to name a few. So, what are you waiting for? Grab your laptop, buckle up, put your foot on the gas pedal, and get ready for the ride. Where Do I Begin? I get this question almost on a daily basis, writers eager to get started, but don’t know where to begin, leaving writers stuck in a frustrating cycle all while staring at a blank page. Here are my steps to begin the writing process and to get something written down: Begin with a concept of ideas you want to cover in your book. This will give you a starting point to get the pen rolling and get the creative juices flowing. Also, to avoid redundancy, create an outline for your talking points for each chapter to help facilitate your storyline. The next step is oftentimes overlooked due to one’s confidence on their subject matter. Research your topic; never assume or take for granted that the information coming from your brain tank is enough to
GRIT seal the deal. This also applies to topics that you are well versed in. Here comes the hardest part for most people, WRITE YOUR BOOK! There is no other way around writing your manuscript other than carving out time to sit your butt down somewhere and getting it done. Your goal is not to run a sprint while writing, but rather to go at a medium pace to truly develop a good storyline. In today’s saturated writers’ market, it is easy to write a book, so much so that authors are born every day without going through the birthing process of studying, researching, and owning the craft. The trick is to write a great book; a well thought out book with wonderful, believable characters. Whatever genre you decide to write under, your goal is to write on purpose with conviction and focus. You should aim to take your readers on an emotional high, similar to a rollercoaster ride. Make it so that readers can’t put your book down. This will not happen without proficiency and owning the craft of writing. I sometimes refer to that process as a lyrical orgasm.
is hope. Laura Kandewen began to shape a writing career of her own. Having written multiple short stories and read her fair share on the art of writing, she wrote her first book of poetry, A Soldier’s Heart. With limited resources in Iraq, Laura managed to write and self-published her first poetry book under her publishing company, Lyrical Soldier Publishing. The desert land and the possibility of death gave Laura insight into emotions and character development, “Living day by day with your weapon by your side, and driving in an open desert field highlighted just how fragile life really was,” Laura explains. Laura went on to become the recipient of the Editors’ Choice Award from the International Library of Poetry for 2003 and 2004 for outstanding achievement in poetry. Laura has retired from the military after serving 22 years on Active Duty. For more information about her books and writings, go to her website at laurakandewen.com
There might come a point where you get stuck in the writing process, but don’t worry; every writer will eventually succumb to writer’s block, the moment when your characters no longer want to cooperate, leaving you with an empty space in the center of your brain. It happens. Frustration and doubt are pushing you to the edge while you desperately try to find words of inspiration, but there
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“The trick is to write a great book; a well thought out book with wonderful, believable characters”
Success Champions
grit is personal! By Stacey Magovern
I “Grit is going to be different for all of us, but if you are showing up and pushing everyday to be your best self and live your best life - that is the key.”
found myself googling what is grit? The reoccurring definition I found was mentally tough. Other words that continued to pop up were perseverance and tenacity. Ok, now those are terms I can relate to, and have been used to describe me my entire life. Mental toughness is hard. I can truly say this only comes after you have been knocked down by life many times. On August 31, 2018 I got a call that would change my life and test my mental toughness forever. I was told my Mom had been found in her home murdered. My Mom and I were very close we spoke almost everyday and she was my biggest cheer leader. The thought of continuing in life without
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her was devastating; but then thinking about her last moments on this earth shook me to my core. I spent the next six months in what I call robot mode. I did what I was supposed to do, I got up everyday and went through the motions; but I was absent. I was literally a robot. Then one day I woke up, I mean really woke up. I realized I am still here; I am alive, and I must now live my life for both of us. I tell myself this is what she would want. I think this is true mental toughness and perseverance - at least my version. At this point there is no closure on her murder case, and we are not even close to a trial date; but I can’t, and I won’t let the person that murdered my Mom steal anything else from me or my family. Since I have decided to live big enough for both of us, I have really been stepping outside my comfort zone. I have been a guest on over 10 podcasts telling my story of success
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in my businesses. I co-authored a cookbook and a business book that are both for sale on Amazon. My husband and I bought a lake house to make as many memories as we possibly can. Life is short and not a single day is guaranteed. Grit is going to be different for all of us, but if you are showing up and pushing everyday to be your best self and live your best life - that is the key. The first step is to decide what grit means to you. For you it may be never missing a workout or to stop procrastinating on projects. It doesn’t matter what it is, just be consistent and clear about what you’re going after…and your goals. For me I will continue to go bigger and louder in life because I am living for both of us now. My Mom was the original badass I can only hope to leave a legacy even half as amazing as hers.
families of law enforcement became her business. She launched her company Point Blank Safety Services in 2012 with no way of knowing today her company would be one of the most successful traffic safety and security companies in Texas. She then used that success to pay it forward by founding a nonprofit, Blue Family Fund that provides scholarships for First Responder dependents and financial aid to families of injured or fallen law enforcement officers. Stacey is not just the CEO and founder of these businesses but is also a published author and motivational speaker.
Stacey Magovern went from outside salesperson to running a multi-milliondollar company overnight. The wife of a police officer Stacey’s passion for helping
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“Then one day I woke up, I mean really woke up. I realized I am still here; I am alive, and I must now live my life for both of us.”
